1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image-recording apparatus, more precisely to an image-recording apparatus for recording an image on a light and heat sensitive recording material.
2. Description of the Related Art
In conventional photo-recording systems such as, typically, those for silver photography, films such as negative or positive films are exposed to light to form images thereon, and then developed. The image information thus recorded on the developed films is optically printed on printing paper, which is then processed with a processing solution to obtain prints. Color negative films generally have a layer to be exposed to blue light to form a yellow color image thereon, a layer to be exposed to green light to form a magenta color image thereon, and a layer to be exposed to red light to form a cyan color image thereon. In a developing process, latent image-bearing silver halide grains in the film are reduced to silver while a developer used is oxidized, and the oxidized product is reacted with a coupler (coupling reaction) to form a color image. The non-developed silver halides and the developed silver are removed with a bleach-fixer in a bleach-fixing process that follows the developing process. Then, color printing paper is exposed to light through the resulting negative color image, and developed, bleached and fixed in the same manner as above to obtain a color print. Hence, most conventional photo-recording systems are wet systems that use processing solutions. Therefore, processing apparatuses are large, and processing costs are often high.
Regarding silver halide photographic materials, a range of short wavelengths of not longer than 450 nm corresponds to the basic absorption range for silver halides therein; and light within this short wavelength range could not be used in recording images on silver halide photographic materials. Therefore, for silver halide photographic materials, wavelength separation latitude could not be sufficiently broadened. For this reason, it has heretofore been difficult to design color photographic materials for recording with lights of three colors, red, green and blue, without problems of color mixing in recorded images.
On the other hand, a simple and rapid method has been developed for processing silver halide photographic materials through thermal development. For this method, some systems are commercially available on the market, such as 3M's DRY SILVER and Fuji Photo Film's PICTROGRAPHY and PICTROSTAT. However, this method of thermal development requires a process of transferring dyes formed through thermal development onto an image-receiving material to give prints, and a drawback is that it produces waste material.